Brigitte the political prognosticator – NOT!

Funny. I had a very strong feeling the U.S. House of Representatives would vote down that huge complicated government-take-over health care bill. I was wrong, which goes to show what I know (hint: very little). But here’s a little bit of silver lining:

The bill will allow the government to sell insurance in competition with private companies and make insurers offer cover to those with pre-existing conditions.

However, the government-run healthcare programme – the so-called “public option” – was scaled back in the run-up to the vote.

One key concession to get the bill through was to anti-abortion legislators.

An amendment was passed that prohibits coverage for abortion in the government-run programme except for rape, incest or if the mother’s life is threatened. Private plans can still offer the cover.

Democrat Bart Stupak, who sponsored the amendment, said: “Let us stand together on principle – no public funding for abortions.”

Abortion rights supporters said the amendment was the biggest setback to their cause in decades.

See? If you deny public funding for elective abortion (i.e. those made for “choice” reasons), the pro-abortion crowd will see it as a big setback. Doesn’t that give you any ideas?

*In other news, outside of an abortion facility in Texas today, a pedestrian accidently dropped a penny on the sidewalk. Opponents of fetal rights have declared this the most massive setback for their movement in decades.*

It was never funded in the first place…

But it’s not funded even now, so we took, at the very least, a big step forward in human rights. 🙂

PD: To answer your question, it’s because we are worried about incrimentalism. A small restriction today may lead to a greater restriction tomorrow. We are also very worried about availability, fearing that a situation may arise in which abortion is legal in princible but unavailable in practice due to a lack of clinics or doctors who would perform such a procedure, or because it becomes tied up in red tape designed to be as obstructive as possible.

In the most specific case of this bill though, us pro-choicers are also concerned that insurance companies will now have a reason to drop coverage for abortion entirely rather than lose out on easy federal subsidy money, leading further towards a situation in which abortion is legal but prohibitatively expensive.

I wouldn’t get hopes raised too high yet, this bill has to pass the Senate. Several commentators have said that the anti-abortion amendment may get stripped off the bill by the Senate, and that the Senate is even more pro-abortion than the House of Representatives.
This is not over by a long shot.

Well, since I got it wrong so far, I won’t predict anything else… But my general point about public funding still stands, I think: That if, in countries where abortion is generally funded by public dollars regardless of the reasons, we decided to stop funding abortion with public dollars unless, say, the mother’s life was really at stake (very rare, I understand), we’d deal a major blow to the industry and thereby reduce the number of casual abortions.

“we’d deal a major blow to the industry and thereby reduce the number of casual abortions.”

I think you just found the difference between how the pro-life and pro-choice factions regard the number of abortions performed today.

The pro-life faction seeks to resuce the number directly, through whatever means that takes – direct prohibition, time-wasteing laws, disruptive protests, funding limitations, manditory waiting periods, and so on. Prevent the abortions, and pay no regard to whatever other consequences doing so might have.

The pro-choice faction also sees the number as untidily high, but seeks to reduce it only by eliminating the need – they’d use techniques such as improving education and contraceptive availability in order to bring down the unwanted pregnancy rates, but what they don’t do is try to directly stop any woman who choses abortion from having one. They’ll just try to keep her from ending up in the situation where she makes that choice. Abortion is regarded by them as unpleasant, and undesireable, but unfortunatly necessary.

That’s a very biased view that you have, Suricou. There’s debate in the pro-life movement as to the best way to reduce abortions. Every pro-lifer who I’ve met believes in raising women’s status around the world and improving children’s rights, but then the disagreements start between those pro-lifers who are divided on this fact here:

Should we allow government programs (universal health, for example) to come in or should the programs be separate from the government (private organizations, for example)? It depends, I’ve noticed, generally, on one’s political leanings: liberals (myself included) tend to support universal health, whereas more conservative pro-lifers want less government-based ways of reducing abortion. Pro-choicers see this and notice those who don’t support government programs and say, “Because they don’t actually want to reduce the abortion rate…” when in reality that’s a lie and is meant to be misleading, but, moreover, I think that pro-choicers are just misled in their assumptions themselves.

Government programs versus non-government programs aside, pro-lifers are in favor of advancing human rights- there’s just division in the movement as to the best way to go about reducing the abortion rate.

But really, you should keep this in mind because it’s easier for anyone, abortion debate or not, to paint his or her enemies as clearly evil and motivated by evil and all of his or her actions must therefore be ineffective and/or nefarious, when in reality that’s not the case. Pro-lifers are not motivated by an irrational need to terrify women- that’s a very weird conspiracy theory, one not rooted in fact but in a need to demonize “the enemy,” and that is a need that everyone has in every aspect of life. Just as I’m willing to accept that you’re motivated by the need to expand what you believe are human rights, you should be willing to do the same for others who oppose you because we believe that being pro-life is what progresses human rights.

Don’t you think that the pro-abortion forces are already re-grouping and working on ways to sneak it back in through the back door?
These people are relentless, and will do ANYTHING to have their way.
I hope I am wrong, but ten years from now the U.S. will be just like in Canada, the only “civilized” country where abortion is allowed with no restrictions whatsoever.

Suricou said, “They’ll just try to keep her from ending up in the situation where she makes that choice.”

He’s describing pro-lifers, isn’t he? He should be. Take the pro-lifers who grow up in my church. They often have many brothers and sisters, so they are quickly socialized, learning gender roles at an early age. especially the older siblings who look after the younger ones. They have learned to obey and respect their parents: obedience is God’s specific commandment for children! The parents set their curfews, teach them, help them choose their friends, and pray for them. Children learn, too, from their parents’ example. Knowing also the Seventh Commandment, guided by an informed conscience, believing in planned parenthood (the wedding first, then sex), and superintended by their parents and the parents of their friends, these children are much less likely to have children out of wedlock than their secular humanist peers. At least such is the situation in my church.

Don’t think that we want to keep this wonderful way all to ourselves. Definitely not! It is an eventual blessing on conversion, which my church heartily recommends to all sinners. And we support crisis pregnancy centres, operate correspondence education programs for prisoners, and play soccer with the migrant workers. As God Himself said to Israel, when He made His covenant with them, there is “set before you life and death, the blessing and the curse. So choose life in order that you may live, you and your descendants…” (Deut. 30:19)

Suricou said, “[Pro-choicers would] use techniques such as improving education and contraceptive availability in order to bring down the unwanted pregnancy rates…” Ha! At a younger age, I remember my mother’s qualified approval of the graffiti scribbled over the sign for a local high school: “Safe sex is no fun.” Besides, sex ed. in its current form usually encourages sexual activity.

Suricou, do you really want to “eliminate the need” for abortion? Try s*xual abstinence. But I think that pro-choicers are less concerned about reducing a “need” to kill than about having s*x without commitment. Now some African leaders no longer want the secular humanist bad influence. No more s*xists! (Refer to my definition of s*xism, which is something like “s*x whenever, wherever, however, with whomever or whatever…”)

To modify Suricou’s language, pro-choicers want to “prevent [s*xual inhibition], and pay no regard to whatever other consequences doing so might have.”